


Twenty Years Ago

by CourageousPineapple



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, The Sentinel 20th Anniversary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6312694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourageousPineapple/pseuds/CourageousPineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair reminisce about their meeting twenty years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty Years Ago

TWENTY YEARS AGO

Blair Sandburg was just pulling a plate of chicken parmigiana out of the oven when he heard a key jingling in the front door’s lock.  
  
“Great timing, Jim,” he greeted his housemate, turning to set down the pan on a trivet in the center of the table.  
  
“Smells good, chief,” Jim Ellison responded. Keys in the basket by the door, jacket hung on the peg nearby, the sentinel was ready to eat. “So what’s the occasion?”  
  
“I realized something kind of cool. Did you know it was twenty years ago today that we first met?” Blair passed a filled plate to Jim.  
  
“Twenty years? It’s funny, it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.”  
  
“I know what you mean.”  
  
  
As they began to eat, the two men reminisced about the past twenty years, all the joy, the sorrow, the criminals they had stopped, the people they had helped, the adventures, the dangers, the quiet times, the failures, the successes. Life lived in full.  
  
“Man, do you remember that mobile phone you had back when we first met? That thing was like a brick!” Blair crowed.  
  
“Hey, it was cutting edge back then.”  
  
“Yeah, you were the mack-daddy all right.”  
  
“Things sure have changed,” Jim said, fishing out his smart phone and holding it up.  
  
“That they have,” Blair agreed.  
  
“Then again, the Sandburg Zone is still a very strange place, so not *everything* has changed.”  
  
“Come on in, the water’s fine!”  
  
“Maybe in another twenty years, chief.”  
  
After the laughter came a companionable silence as they finished off their dinner.  
  
“Oh hey, do you remember that submarine Garrett Kincaid had?”  
  
“How could I forget?”  
  
“Well you’ll never guess where it ended up.”  
  
“Where?”  
  
“The San Diego Maritime Museum.”  
  
“No kidding.”  
  
“Yeah, I’ve got that conference coming up in San Diego, so I was looking around for things I might want to do afterwards. That’s how I found it.”  
  
“I wonder how it ended up in California, after it was confiscated here in Cascade.”  
  
“I don’t know — the website didn’t talk about the specific sub's history, just the history of that type of sub. But I thought I’d go see it, for old times’ sake. Maybe I’ll bring a basketball, see if I can make the same shot.”  
  
“You do that, chief,” Jim said with a laugh, clapping the younger man on the shoulder.  
  
“I just might.”  
  
By now, both had settled in the living room, getting ready to watch the Cascade Jags game.  
  
“Twenty years ago today?” Jim asked.  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“You remember the exact date.”  
  
“Of course! It’s not every day you meet ‘the living embodiment of my field of study,’ you know.”  
  
“Or a neo-hippie witch doctor punk,” Jim replied with a grin.  
  
“Or the best friend a guy could ask for,” Blair’s smile was warm and heartfelt.  
  
“Or the best friend,” Jim agreed with an equally warm smile. Because even twenty years later, that’s really what is was all about. Friendship.

**Author's Note:**

> 03/20/16:  
> Like Jim and Blair, I find it hard to believe it's been twenty years since I first met a sentinel and his guide. I've made a lot of friends and had a lot of fun because of The Sentinel. It's what led me to the Internet, back in the days of listservs and the like. This fandom has been very special to me, and I just had to mark it on this day, the twentieth anniversary of its premiere and of the first time I met these wonderful characters. Thanks for indulging me!  
>   
> P.S. the submarine really is at the San Diego Maritime Museum - check out sdmaritime.org. :-)


End file.
